Friday, February 17, 2012

It's Go Time For TV At Daytona

The gripes of the off-season are over as the Sprint Cup Series cars involved in the Bud Shootout hit the Daytona track at 5PM and 6:30PM for practice sessions that will be carried live on SPEED.

Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds from the NASCAR on FOX gang get to knock the rust off from the winter over on the FOX-owned cable network. Steve Byrnes and Matt Yocum are the reporters for the early session. Krista Voda and Dick Berggren will handle the final practice.

Before the first session, SPEED breaks out a cast of thousands for a one hour NASCAR Live show that will try to touch all the bases and get the fans caught-up on the many changes in the sport since last season.

At both 4PM and 6PM it will be John Roberts and Dave Despain hosting from their respective positions. Kyle Petty, Jeff Hammond and Phil Parsons will be working as analysts. Randy Pemberton, Wendy Venturini, Bob Dillner and Hermie Sadler will handling the reporter duties.

Once the on-track action is done, Adam Alexander will host SpeedCenter from the SPEED studios back in Charlotte, NC. The new analyst replacing Ray Evernham on this show is Ricky Rudd. It should be interesting to see how this on-air dynamic works out as the season rolls on.

At 8:30PM the always entertaining and mildly chaotic Bud Shootout selection show is also on SPEED. As host, Steve Brynes tries to maintain order while his "assistants" Kenny Wallace and Rutledge Wood try just as hard to disrupt him. Ultimately, the line-up for the Saturday night race on FOX will be set.

One of the NASCAR Media Group's finest programs is the Dale Earnhardt Sr. episode of the series called The Day. This program ends the NASCAR programming Friday on SPEED at 10PM and should be mandatory viewing for anyone wanting to understand the sport.

We will be taking your Friday comments on this post as the NASCAR TV day rolls by on SPEED. It should be a good opportunity to notice any changes that have been put in place by the network's new president and also to see just where the TV focus will be as we head toward the Daytona 500.

To add your TV/media related opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by the Daly Planet.

Not NASCAR but racing anyway: Last week the NHRA had their reason opener at Pamona and the antisipated ESPN3(Watch ESPN) telecast never showed up. This morning it has been announced that NHRA qualifying for Friday and the finals on Sunday will be on-line as well as the remaining races this season.Aparently the "tell us what you think" link on the ESPN3 site got some action from the disappointed fans.Good going NHRA and ESPN for the turn around.

thanks for the update about The Day program on Sr. I really liked this series, I wish it was available on DVD because I'd buy the ones that I particularly liked. The one on Alan Kulwicki made me want to cry all over again.

I'll have to keep up with updates via twitter since I won't be home until after all the practices are done.

even MRN is sometimes a few seconds ahead, if it's a slight delay, who cares? This is so not a big deal. If you don't want to know then yes, your alternative is to stay off twitter (and don't spoil it for others, who are, for all purposes, enjoying it live.

JD hear that Chris Myers son was killed in an auto accident in Southern California today. John Roberts to replace him for shootour, qualifying and 500. Prayers should go out to Chris Myers and his family.

Comment on the verification words (and it took 8 tries to get one I could read). The hard to read one is the actual verification word. The usually easy one is part of a project to verify optical scanning results. Google reCaptcha for details.